h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

paulh:

I do wish I'd managed to get you reading some Marx:

>>I'm not sure that Capitalism is as much to blame as the political structure.

They're one and the same. The 'Mode of Production' (essentially waged labour and capitalised production) is supported by all sorts of superstructures - politics, law, education, religion etc. etc. - which arise because of the need to keep production going. In this sense, Capitalism is also an ideology. However, because we're all engaged in the Capitalist mode of production, we're all somewhat blind to the ideology: it's the only way we know. We think it obvious that children should be trained for the job market at an early age, we require politicians to make this happen. We accept that for most people the primary organising factor in our lives should be commerce and have built our towns and cities accordingly (zoning/planning laws; transportation policy). We require politicians to sustain the economic environment which allows capitalised production to flourish (tax breaks for the rich and all that useful stuff)...etc. etc. Are there alternatives? How would I know? I live under Capitalism!

>>If there's a democracy, and it's an effective one, then people can vote to put restraints on the richest folks.

Yes, that's going quite well, isn't it? There are reasons why we don't tend to restrain the rich as much as some would suggest is sensible. This is because the superstructure has an impact on the political process. I am not suggesting there is any kind of nefarious, top-down plot. Rather the political superstructure is determined by the Capitalism and thus inevitably acts to reinforce Capitalism - in all sorts of ways that we don't even think of as extraordinary.



What are we to understand by 'revolution'? Does it mean putting different people in charge of doing the smae things that we do already? Or are we after a whole new way of being?

David Cameron's party received 36.1% of the vote, just about a third on what is a two and a "half" party system. Yet he is taking every opportunity to restructure systems (health, education, police) along "free market" principles. The changes to taxation (including indirect) result in the low pay paying more tax (as percentage of total income) than those on a higher pay. This is based on the principles of trickle down economics.

When the world is viewed as nails, the only solutions offered are bigger and bigger hammers.

I clicked on this thread expecting to be able to sign up to the People's Pasty Party.

Mol

"Could we have a peoples revolution to over throw capitalism?"

Who's "we"?

"Would it be possible?"

No. Unless we all did it, everyone in the world, all at once, AND had something better in mind, and all agreed on it. Good luck with that.

"Would we want one?"

No. Capitalism is the least worst system of economics we've come up with so far, and it is appropriate to our current tech level. Eventually our ability to exploit resources and manufacture goods will advance to the point that individual labour (mental and physical) is no longer required. At that point the system will break down, it's unlikely to be pretty, but whatever comes next will be as much better than capitalism as capitalism is better than feudalism.

Ed, my understanding of it is that it is to be an active organisation seeking to make changes in the short term as well as thinking about ideas for the long term. Take a look at the web site and see what you think. (You'll note I joined already - I even got to be the first member in France. )

http://www.iopsociety.org/

"I do wish I'd managed to get you reading some Marx" [Edward the Bonobo]

I'm pretty sure I *did* read some Marx at some time, like when I was in college. But now I'm reading detective stories, and I've just picked up a copy of "1493," which is a long book about how the Americas developed after Columbus.

"They're one and the same. The 'Mode of Production' (essentially waged labour and capitalised production) is supported by all sorts of superstructures - politics, law, education, religion etc. etc. - which arise because of the need to keep production going. In this sense, Capitalism is also an ideology. However, because we're all engaged in the Capitalist mode of production, we're all somewhat blind to the ideology: it's the only way we know."

But Marx himself lived in a capitalist society. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he have an inheritance to draw on so he had time to write and theorize without having to work himself to death? Just wondering. In any event,I'm not so much hostile to him (I'm sure he was a nice guy with great intentions), as a little leery of wading back into the Marxist canon in light of the contortions that his works became under Lenin, Stalin, and Mao.

There's also a brighter side, though. Marx lite was the socialist experiments that gave many countries such things as Social Security, national health plans, and the like. These coexisted with capitalist economic systems. People might still have had to slave for unpleasant bosses, but at least their families didn't starve when they got too sick to work, and they received enough to live on after they retired.

Feel free to stop me when I say something stupid.

Stone Art

And yet if Gordon Brown had gained 36.1% of the vote, Labour would have had 357 seats and an absolute majority.

Hmm.

>>But Marx himself lived in a capitalist society. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't he have an inheritance to draw on so he had time to write and theorize without having to work himself to death?

Well he was famously bankrolled by Friedrich Engels who worked for the family textile firm of Ermen and Engels in Manchester - but in rather desperate circumstances (at 82 Dean St, Soho - currently a restaurant, for the Marx s). I totally agree, though - Capitalism gave him the means to develop his theories. But that's a truism: how could it be otherwise?

(See also when Occupy protesters were derided for using Starbucks. I'm sure if there was an anti-capitalist coffee shop conveniently located in the City they'd have gone there.)

I've recently blogged on the Marx/Lenin disconnect - although I don't want to drag that in here. Anyone sufficiently interested (as if!) can e-mail me (see PS).

>>There's also a brighter side, though. Marx lite was the socialist experiments that gave many countries such things as Social Security, national health plans, and the like. These coexisted with capitalist economic systems. People might still have had to slave for unpleasant bosses, but at least their families didn't starve when they got too sick to work, and they received enough to live on after they retired.

Yes. Agreed. These are good points. *However* it is an interesting whether these exist as good in their own right as reflections of the public will or whether they are palliatives to prop up the basic system of Capitalism. If the latter then this may not be a bad thing - It's Capitalism made to work, right? Except what happens when Capitalism undergoes one of its bothersome fluctuations? Ask someone from Spain, Greece or Portugal. Or what happens when a first world Social Democracy comes up against a nation where Capitalism is managed with jails and guns? I don't want to be a Jeremiah - perhaps all will turn out well. My point is that due to the competitive nature of Capitalism we cannot count on its being the servant of the people rather than vice versa.

'All that is solid melts into air.'

@SoRB:

I'm not disagreeing with your basic points in any way, other than to perhaps point out that revolutions are perhaps a little messier than you seem to implying.

To take recent examples, the revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt involved only a small part of their respective populations and those who took part were by no means in agreement with one another or shared a common view of what they wanted to happen afterwards.

Capitalism is fine...it is self-serving immoral greed that we need to revolt against.

Hmm.

But surely Capitalism will tend to favour self-serving immoral greed? This is not quite the same as saying that Capitalism is created and imposed by the bad guys. Rather, competition is central to Capitalism and therefore it requires an element of sauve qu'il peut.

Is it possible to have cuddly Capitalism? What would it look like?

@SoRB, again:

>>No. Capitalism is the least worst system of economics we've come up with so far, and it is appropriate to our current tech level. Eventually our ability to exploit resources and manufacture goods will advance to the point that individual labour (mental and physical) is no longer required. At that point the system will break down, it's unlikely to be pretty, but whatever comes next will be as much better than capitalism as capitalism is better than feudalism.<<

I agree with you that Capitalism is something we get through en route for some (unknown) better thing. I somewhat disagree that this doesn't involve revolution. In fact...surely in your final sentence you've said that it *does* involve revolution? 'Revolution is the motor of history'.

There's an issue of timing, though. At what moment do the conditions of Capitalism dictate that it's time to move on to some new, better place? 1848? 1905? 1917? The reality is that it almost certainly won't happen in a one-er. Just as the transition from Feudalism to Capitalism entailed a series of messy step changes, so too that from Capitalism to...whatever.

Here's one man's thoughts on why and how the change happens:

'At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.'

(from 'Grundrisse for a Critique of Political Economy'. Highly recommended. It's the text that 'Capital' would have been if Marx had been able to afford a 'kin editor.)

"I somewhat disagree that this doesn't involve revolution"

Where did I say it didn't involve revolution?

Read the bits you copy and paste, why don't you? Specifically "the system will break down, it's unlikely to be pretty".

I just don't think there'll be a "people's revolution" against capitalism of the type there've been against other forms of government. More likely there'll be a paradigm shift away from national government. But that will require some entirely autonomous population centres separate from those still engaged in capitalism, which depressingly requires either a sufficiently terraformed Mars or some seriously wacky space habitats. I can't see how it can happen sooner, because I can't see how it can happen on earth, because the capitalist economies will always outcompete and hence outgun the rest, and that's all that counts when you're all clinging to the same rock.

Now, come on. Don't be gratuitously rude.

I was just pointing out that your paragraph began with 'No' [we don't want a revolution] but then seemed to go on to suggest the opposite.

I'd hoped I was making clear that I was basically agreeing with you. If you think I'm after a game of sub sixth-form point scoring, you've got the wrong fella.

A revolution is a rather uncontrollable beast, for that reason it might not be good to start one. Look at Egypt, their new parliament is made up of about 75% islamists. It might well end up being worse than before they had their Arab Spring.

Indeed. Maybe worth watching Bradford West.

"Or what happens when a first world Social Democracy comes up against a nation where Capitalism is managed with jails and guns?" {Edward the Bonobo]

I live in a country that has an embarassingly large supply of jails and guns. I hope my country doesn't qualify as the second example you gave. You were being hypothetical, right? [Please say yes]

I got the impression that Ed meant China, for some reason, but I can't think of a nation where capitalism (or any other system) isn't managed with jails and guns. Aren't they always the last remaining trump card if 'the will of the people' can't be relied upon to be sufficiently cajole-able?

Thanks, KB. I think of China in the Communist camp, though they are obviously allowing rather a lot of capitalist activity now. The Soviets were not cpitalistic during their Communist period, but they sure had a lot of prisoners in jails and gulags. I doubt that prisons are absent from any country, but I can't be sure. Maybe the Vatican excommunicates rather than jailing its offenders?

"Maybe the Vatican excommunicates rather than jailing its offenders?"

I thought it just moved them on to parishes where the kids were fresh and new and didn't know about the "special" prayers.